The swarming season is upon us

I have just checked some of my colonies at the slab castle apiary. This was during a session with the beginners. Of the six colonies that belong to me, two of them had queen cells. A good proportion of these were already sealed ( and yes I did check the box last Saturday with Helen and didn't pick up that they were making preparations to go). One box had swarmed, the other had been unable to do so as I had clipped the Queen and she is now lost.

If you have a large colony (for instance seven frames of brood in a 14 x 12 brood box) you might consider pre-empting the bees and splitting the colony before they make queen cells. I am assuming that you are already prepared with a spare hive and frames made up with fresh foundation. However this would be a disaster for a small unit, so only do this if your colony is strong.

The bees in the box of brood will make Queen cells. Go back after 3 days and choose a good open queen cell. Mark the frame this is on with a drawing pin. Go back in another three days and destroy all queen cells except the chosen one.

On the original site you will have the Queen on one frame of brood. This box  needs a rapid feeder on as they require a lot of sugar syrup to draw out the new brood nest.

Your honey crop is placed above the brood nest where your bees are making Queen cells. As long as you only leave one Queen cell (remember you have to go back twice) your honey crop won't fly off over the hedge. This box should be ok to handle because the bees are younger, the foragers returning to the old queen on the original site. This box should continue gathering honey as for a month there will be no brood and they will have nothing else to do but collect honey for you.

I hope this email arrives in time for you to be able to take pre-emptive action if it is required.

Malcolm Wilkie 16th April 2017

 

Are you denying your honeybees their human rights?

Of course I am being somewhat facetious in suggesting that honeybees have human rights. Perhaps I should have said animal rights or even better insect rights. In fact perhaps I should rephrase my question and say instead, are you denying your honeybees their insect rights? Let's hope that by posing such a silly question you will dismiss this article and read no further. Perhaps if enough beekeepers ignore my advice then there will be some good swarms that the beginners might be able to get hold of to start beekeeping. That's what I am hoping for anyway. So please don't  read any further than here, and thereby you will be letting your colony swarm and Peter will have some good swarms to collect.

During this current nectar flow young bees have an absolute need to make wax. Your colonies are expanding at an exponential rate. Your queens are laying eggs on almost every frame. Congestion is taking place in your hives. Those of you who have heeded my warning about loving your bees too much have already done something to avoid congestion in the hive, and you have taken out a frame of stores and added a frame of foundation next to the brood nest. If you still find that a big colony needs more space you can, in extremis, commit the ultimate sin. You can (it has to be a strong colony) split the brood nest by placing a frame of foundation in the middle of the brood. I now expect salvos to be launched at me by the more experienced among you, but I know this is what some bee farmers do.

But how about our honeybees insect rights? Imposing congestion on your bees is a far worse sin than the manipulation mentioned above. When you impose a small space onto a large colony, they then set about swarming. Supering and supering at the correct moment allows your bees to expand and decongest the brood nest. In the past I have sometimes found the bees putting nectar on top of eggs they had so little room. How terrible is that?

You are the sort of beekeeper, of course, who takes the trouble to provide fresh wax for your bees to work on during a nectar flow. Old wax is refreshed with a hair dryer, Kemble wax is given to the bees because you know it is better. You check your supers regularly and you become aware when the bees have completely filled the super with nectar and are crying out for more space and room. You are the sort of person who would then put on a second super. You place this directly above the brood nest so that if there is foundation in the super then the bees can draw it out as quickly as possible. The warm spot above the brood nest is the place where the bees will find it easiest to draw out the wax.

By proceeding in the fashion suggested above you are allowing your hive to breath. A lot of space is needed for nectar to be stored before it is turned into honey and there needs to be space in the brood nest for the Queen to continue laying, otherwise the bees vote for Brexit. And once the bees have decided on Brexit, there is no going back. Your job as the beekeeper is to keep your charges busy working for you and making honey. Don't even let them think that Brexit is a possibility!

It may be a good idea to alternate in your second super frames of nectar, with frames of foundation. By doing so the bees will instinctively draw out your foundation for you, particularly if the foundation is just above the brood nest. Distract them, by forcing them to work. Margaret Ginman says that you should think of your bees in the same way as you would think of a group of adolescent boys. If you don't give them something to do, they will misbehave. And in this context misbehaving means swarming or put another way, Brexit.

So are you respecting your bees fundamental needs to make wax? Are you checking that the Queen has room to lay? Are you giving the bees adequate space by supering at the right moment? Are you alternating frames of nectar with foundation to force your honeybees to work to their maximum potential? What do Syrians do when they are treated as they are treated by Assad? They leave! What will your honeybees do if you treat them badly by forcing them to live in a box that is just too small for them? They will leave! And you can't really blame them either! They would have loved to make you honey if only you had managed them better! So they will seek refuge elsewhere. Perhaps they will find a better beekeeper than you. And he may be a Trump-like figure, who bangs the box and is rough handling them, but if he gives them space that is what they really want.

Listen to what your bees want. Pop off the roof and look how many of them are milling around above the crown board. If there are more than a few doing so, they need space!!! Give your bees their insect rights, give them space and by doing so you will get honey. However if your unit is only a small unit, hang back and let them build up naturally without adding draughty supers that they will ignore anyway.

A note of warning. Currently a lot of the nectar is coming from oilseed rape and this will not stay in flower for ever. Once you see the fields of oilseed rape going over, you need to extract the honey ASAP. Oilseed rape honey sets rockhard in the frames and is useless to the beekeeper and it is useless to the bees. If you are in the Groombridge area you need to keep a very careful eye. If you are in the Eridge area, ditto. Will you be able to get hold of an extractor when you need to extract? Could you combine with another local beekeeper and both of you extract on the same day using the same extractor? Ask yourself these questions now, otherwise you will be in a mess.

Malcolm Wilkie April 8th 2017

SOS - super now

We are very early in the season because we are still in the month of March, however there is a nectar flow on at the moment. Believe it or not rape seed is now coming into flower and we are still in March!! The fields around Lamberhurst are yellow today. At Mount Camphill on Friday the large ornamental cherry tree was abuzz with honeybees. At the slab castle apiary the blackthorn (sloe) is in full flower. In Hastings there are trees after trees awash with spring flowers and the presence of these spring flowers coupled with high temperatures are enabling our bees to bring back nectar to the hive.

Experienced beekeepers have been aware for a number of weeks now of the unusual high temperatures and activity in the hives has been strong. Those of you who do not work have been able to choose a nice day to go through your hive or hives quickly. You have realised that with a very strong hive there is a lot of brood and as Keith taught you, you have put on a super to allow the bees room to expand. Those supers are currently filling with nectar! If, like me, you have ignored the warning signs of high activity in a strong colony and not yet supered, you will find yourself with comb built above the crown board and stuck to the roof. When you remove the crown board there are bees everywhere.

So what do you do? You will have to go in and smoke the bees down, scrape all the honey off the top of the frames and then put on a queen excluder and give your charges a super. It may be wise with a strong colony like this to examine them on Thursday (March 30th) when temperatures could get up to 20 degrees, to check that they are not building queen cells. Sid Hook tells me he has drones in his hives at this very moment. Temperatures are not so high on Sunday but if you work and have no other option, you will have to do it then. The season is kicking off with a vengeance!

The majority of you will not be in this situation but sit up and take note. You need to put a super on your hive. This can be drawn comb or a mixture of drawn comb and foundation. If the foundation is old it must be warmed up by using a hair dryer. Don't think you can dispense with the hairdryer because the bees just do not like drawing out old wax and in the long run you will make work for yourself by not freshening up the wax. Some foundation in your super box is a good idea so that the young bees can make wax; young bees without the possibility to make wax will trigger swarming in your hive. Keep your bees busy and it will take their minds off swarming for the time being and, of course, give you a spring crop. Be warned  supering and choosing the right moment to put a super on is part of swarm control. If bees don't have room to expand, they swarm!

With a small to middling sized colony they sometimes ignore the super completely.  Box clever, put your super on without a queen excluder. Go back three or four days later and if they are working the super pop your queen excluder in at that stage. If you are a Newbee and only have foundation, this is the way to proceed to tempt your charges to draw out the foundation for you. Remember foundation is more likely to be drawn out if it is placed above the brood nest.

In colonies with lots of young bees now is the moment when you can replace a couple of old brood frames with new foundation. All those young bees are desperate to draw out the wax for you. If you were organised last autumn you put the dirtiest combs on the edge of the box and it is these that you are now renewing.

Beginners should also take note of this email. The season is early and if they wish to obtain bees it is crucial that they have a hive ready. This hive should be in position and the frames of foundation should be made up so that  they can be placed in the hive at a moment's notice.

Keith and I are holding a session on keeping control of swarming on Thursday the 6th of April at Cross in Hand at 7.30pm. Given the early nature of the season it won't be a moment too soon for us to hold this session. Swarming is never easy and cannot be controlled 100%, but having a strategy in your head and a hive ready or a nucleus box ready, will help. Remember to let Rosemarie know if you are coming.

28th March 2017 - Malcolm Wilkie

Can you love your bees too much?

There is a buzz of excitement in my apiaries at the moment as the bees are flying out and bringing back pollen in quantity. We all breathe a sigh of relief when we see pollen going into the hive in quantity, as that indicates that the Queen has survived the winter and the colony is beginning to expand.

Mouse guards should be removed as this knocks the pollen off the bees legs as they struggle to get into the hive. If you have undersupered you now need to go back to the traditional configuration and put a queen excluder between the brood box and the super above that brood box. You might also use the opportunity for giving hive a fresh floor. Or if you have a blowtorch you can quickly clean up the floor while the brood box is sitting on the upturned roof before putting the hive back together with the traditional configuration.Do this away from the hive as bees don't like being blowtorched. Any wrapping that has been used to keep the hive dry over winter can also now be removed so that the sun plays directly onto the wood. If you are like me you will already have given them a pollen pattie last month in the hope that that will kick start the brood early. Each one of my 13 hives has wolfed down a whole pattie. The reason for putting neopoll on  is that you want a really strong colony next month when the nectar flow begins. I haven't tried any stimulative feeding to get more bees for the coming nectar flow but that may be a consideration for you. However, don't try it with too small a colony as that will stress them out and they just won't be able to process the sugar syrup.This is the one time when a light syrup can be used.

Another scenario for you may be one where you have been overgenerous in feeding last autumn. This means the brood box contains frames of stores which the bees have not even started to eat. If you have  'overloved ' your bees in this way they probably even have a super full of sugar syrup which they haven't touched. The consequence of this could be that there is no room for the Queen to lay. And that means that you won't have a colony big enough to collect the spring nectar flow and you will be denying yourself a spring honey crop. So what do you do? I have talked to Helen and this is her suggestion.

You have two options: a soft option and a hard option. The soft option is to place your super that is full of sugar syrup directly on top of the brood box without a queen excluder. All of the frames are stuffed full of sugar syrup so you need to remove one or two frames and replace them with foundation. This should be directly above the brood nest ( you can discover where the brood nest is by putting an inspection board in the previous day and seeing where the bees are working). You will also be able to feel the heat rising up from the brood nest. What happens in this scenario is that if the queen needs space, the bees will go up, draw out the comb, and she will then lay in the super on those two frames.

The hard option is to put your inspection board in, see where the brood nest is, and then go into your hive and place a frame of foundation next to the brood nest. You will then have to remove one of the frames of stores from the outside and shuffle along all the other frames. However you are not, and I stress not disturbing the brood nest. In this scenario if the bees want more space for the Queen to lay, they will draw out a frame of foundation and put eggs and larvae into that. Keith and Helen seem to differ about whether a frame of foundation will be drawn out at this time of year. I trust Helen on this one as she is far more generous in feeding and has had to rectify this situation in the past.

So you need to ask yourself the question, did I over love my bees too much last autumn. Did I, by overfeeding them, cause myself a problem now (i.e. no space for the Queen to lay) which is going to affect my honey crop this spring?Have I too many frames of stores in the brood box, the unintended consequence of that being that I am preventing the colony building up as rapidly as they should. And then I won't have the  number of foragers that I should to collect a spring honey crop! Only you can know if you have loved your bees too much.
Malcolm Wilkie 16/03/2017

If you are at all passionate about your bees you will have noticed that they now think that spring is here. Temperatures are now regularly above 8°C and the bees are flying out and collecting pollen. These pollen loads are in big round balls and in quantity which indicates that they are now raising brood. If you lift the roof off your hive the bees will come and take a look at you; they are active.

Unlike me, of course, you have cleaned up all your equipment, ordered frames for the new season and have put in place a plan for each hive according to the records that you have been keeping last year. It isn't a bad idea to put your inspection board in for a week now just to check that the varroa drop is non existent. If you have a count as low as five in one week at this time of year, you are going to have a problem this season.! Don't think that this is a low count for the month of February!!!!! Remember the brood rearing season has only just started so the count should be really really low or non-existent at this stage.

You need to assess what type of colony you have. Have you got a small colony that is struggling, or a medium-size colony or a humongous colony? Strategies for the next season will depend on your answer to the above question. What can you do now? February and March is the key cross over period for honeybees. Beekeepers who have been too greedy in taking honey from their charges may have caused a problem now. This is because the bees can run out of honey at this time of year. They are raising the temperature in the brood nest to 37°C and in order to do this they are consuming huge quantities of their stores. Did you leave your bees enough honey so that they could kickstart the colony back into life at this time of year?

Those who are organised among us will have regularly hefted their hives over the winter. They will be able to calculate what the state of play is and whether their bees have sufficient stores until a true nectar flow begins with the warmer weather. Those of you who are less organised can still lift your hive to ascertain how light it is. If it is light, feed fondant above the crown board. I personally have also given every hive a Neopoll pollen pattie. I rolled this out like the pastry and placed it underneath the crown board on top of the frames. On certain hives once this has been consumed I will have to put more candy (yes I was one of the more disorganised among you).

How does one decide on the strategy for the coming season? A humongous colony will need to be carefully managed and on this sort of colony a shook swarm would be entirely appropriate. You will be able to clean them up by doing a shook swarm and at the same time cut down on any varroa problem. This sort of colony will give you a honey crop later in the season and,of course, by doing a shook swarm you will prevent this sort of colony from swarming. On Thursday, 9 March Keith and I will show you how to do this. A small colony on dirty comb cannot be treated in the same way. Admit it, lots of you have a colony of this sort. Even if they are a medium-size colony you probably have not been changing the combs and they are filthy. There will be a build up of minor brood diseases and you are not letting the colony function at an optimum level because of the way you are handling them. A Bailey comb change is the answer. One places a fresh brood box above the old brood box. One places a queen excluder between the two boxes. One raises the Queen on a frame into the top box above the excluder and one places foundation next to that frame. Insolation dummy boards need to be used. And one feeds. Come and see how it is done on Thursday, 9 March. In this scenario you may get a small honey crop later in the season but you will have a fantastic colony in 2018. There will be fresh frames in your box and the bees will thank you.

A strategy must include some sort of swarm management. On 6 April Keith and I will talk you through once again how to manage the swarming season. This is a must if you are a new beekeeper or if you want to remind yourself of everything that you have to bear in mind when dividing a box of bees. I will also try and show you how to bank an old Queen as an insurance policy by using an Apidea.

I look forward to seeing everyone on 9 March and 6 April. Remember you have to let Rosemarie know. She may change the venue if lots if you say you are coming.

Malcolm Wilkie 22nd February 2017